the trick is to keep breathing

march has ended up being an incredibly rough month, to the point where i have fired it, dumped it, and tossed it into the ravine. i've been vaguely ill all month due to the weather (extended ohio winter = pain, PLUS the first time in years i've actually had to deal with winter-related SAD depression), stress-triggered flareups (wedding stuff, mostly, although work continues to eat up energy and the house is no better), and a general malaise and lack of fucks to give about anything ever. i'm tired, i feel light-headed, and i have a load of laundry that has been in a basket for 2 weeks sitting there and waiting for me.

i've also passed the 1-year anniversary of losing my Marzy, and that hit unexpectedly hard.

instead of going on in this vein forever (that's a future post), i want to talk about writing some more, because i made a big decision earlier this month to focus more on things outside-my-work-career - including, and focusing on, writing - and i can't seem to get motivated over anything yet. this is where the post will take a turn from the serious introspective depression shit to some wacky fanfic:

my original stories and my professional blog remain, and i have plans and ideas and drafts for them, but i feel like i have really drifted away from fanfiction in a big way. and original writing is where i want to go, however -- fanfic is/was where i could just have fun and dump words and experiment, and it has been a long time since i've had motivation to really dive into a juicy fanfic that's just kind of fun and zero-fucks (or as few fucks as possible) and reminds me how to do plot and things rather than just snippets and character interactions and etc etc.

i've obviously lived in FF fandom like forever, and i still have ideas and things to explore there, but i'm also considering branching out into other old and fucking dead fandoms because i'm always behind the times and dumb -- and because writing in a new space i've never written in before could be fun inspiration.

i'm looking for some chatter and inspiration so who would like to talk about the following fandoms: Final Fantasy series, as always; Harry Potter (Marauders era); Criminal Minds; Black Jewels trilogy; the Hobbit movie trilogy; the Kushiel series; and i'm sure there's something else there...:

( and more words about making words )

The real question becomes, where to start with it all; I need something (or a couple things) to dive into, to be excited about again, to maybe not care about so much that it gets all clogged up in trying to be specific and accurate and too much? To just have fun writing like I used to?

on one hand, i want to start small - a list of prompts, a prompt a week, like Rina and I intended for 2017: pieces that can be bits if i need, like warm-up exercises. on the other hand, i want to dive back into bigger things, longer things, chapters i can post (pseudo)live and have fun with.

where to start?

please blab at me

the end

I need to stop posting just to share lindorie's amazing icons >.>

SO I SHALL TALK ABOUT FANFICTION IN ADDITION TO STARING AT THIS AMAZING THING THAT HAS BEEN ADDED TO MY LIFE.

I've been wanting to do a post for a while - a post that would become a sticky - describing all the different places you can find me and find my shit online. Like my fic, or my really stupid Tumblr, or whatnot. part of this is the current migration; I definitely want to keep friends as they move to DW. (I use DW primarily, although I don't have any plans to stop crossposting at this point in time.)

But part of this is my fanfiction. And I really need to figure out what I am doing with it.

I have brokenprism, where I posted pretty regularly and religiously for three or four years. Stuff is tagged fairly well. It isn't impossible to find shit there. And a lot of it is smaller, drabble-type stuff, short pieces that are -- I'm not saying they're not good, but Livejournal is the kind of place for posting them. They're snack-fic. I don't know.

But then AO3 came along, and I started posting there, and ...it isn't perfect, no, but I do like it a lot. I like freeform tagging, and I like that they've kept comment-threading (even if it can confuse comments/reviews with WE JUST HAD A 12-COMMENT CONVERSATION), and I like kudos, a lot. I like being able to have series works. And I'm writing more chaptered stuff now. I see myself using AO3 for a while.

But -- there are audiences on LJ that aren't on AO3 (not that... I really... care a TON about comments, but, I like meeting people through fic and comments/feedback is always nice). AND, now, DW is soon opening up community importing. I also have brokenprism on DW, but I've done absolute nothing with it.

So now I am like, what the fuck do I do with all my writing?

I'm not really sure I want to import EVERY THING I WROTE ON LJ into AO3. Or if I did, it would be in a different way -- I had a claim of 100 themes on Rydia, and I was up in like the 30s or 40s, and many of them are tiny little things; I don't really want to storm the Final Fantasy IV section with 37 fics of Rydia all of which are 248 words long. I'd have to make it a chaptered fic, or something, and I'm not sure that's worth doing.

But I'm also really the fuck behind on posting things into brokenprism. The last set of things I've written, like for DOINK or Chocobo Races or for other gifts, or whatever, haven't made it in there; none of the Gundam Wing shameporn made it in there; I really need to crosspost it all and catch it up. IF I plan on keeping BP/LJ as a fic archive. And if I do, I should probably make BP/DW an archive too, simply as more fandom moves to DW and also because DW allows longer entries and longer comments and ACTUAL COMMENT HEADERS and it isn't LJ.

(does anybody know -- can I set crossposting options somewhere for communities? So that like... if I post something AS seventhe TO BP/DW, it will crosspost AS first_seventhe into BP/LJ? Or is this totally wishful thinking)

ANYWAY

So somebody dictate my archival life kthx

Not sure if I've mentioned this yet, but safety_caesars and I are (re)playing FFX. Playing in her case, replaying in my case.

First off, I'll say: I like FFX. I actually like FFX-2, also, and I'm well aware liking both at the same time is Fandom Shun material. I'm certainly not saying either game is perfect, but I enjoy them. I've replayed FFX myself two or three times, and I've started FFX-2 about a dozen times (I can never get through it because the story is much too non-linear for someone with my schedule; I have a month where I can't play anything and then I come back, can't remember where the fuck I was, and the story isn't giving me any guidance, so I have to start over and swear a lot).

Protip: if you follow all of the gasping, grunting, sighing, breathing, exclaiming, and other non-verbal personal noises that are made in dialogue with "he/she came", the voice acting is instantly improved, and the game becomes hilarious.

( Thoughts here, in case they get long. )

Anyway, that's where we are now, and those are my thoughts. More as I go!